Friday, January 19, 2007

La Vierge d'Alsace

This statue is in the gardens of a gallery near where I go to Mass. It's always struck me as very beautiful, and reminds me of twelfth-century sculpture. Having just had the brainwave of actually trying to find out something about it, the NGS website confirms that the sculptor was thinking about Gothic sculpture. I am most pleased, however, to find the explanation for the name: this statue is part of the preparation for a huge stone statue in Alsace. And it's there for a very good reason: